NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

This package implements reading, creating, manipulating, and writing email
messages. Sometimes, the implementation tries to be too smart, but in
the general case it works as expected.

If you start writing a new application, you should use the Mail::Box
distribution, which has more features and handles messages much better
according to the RFCs. See <http://perl.overmeer.net/mailbox/>.
You may also chose MIME::Entity, to get at least some multipart
support in your application.

METHODS

Constructors

$obj->dup()

Duplicate the message as a whole. Both header and body will be
deep-copied: a new Mail::Internet object is returned.

$obj->extract(ARRAY-of-LINES)

Extract header and body from an ARRAY of message lines. Requires an
object already created with new(), which contents will get overwritten.

$obj->new([ARG], [OPTIONS])

Mail::Internet->new([ARG], [OPTIONS])

ARG is optional and may be either a file descriptor (reference to a GLOB)
or a reference to an array. If given the new object will be
initialized with headers and body either from the array of read from
the file descriptor.

The Mail::Header::new()OPTIONS "Modify", "MailFrom" and "FoldLength"
may also be given.

-Option--Default
Body []
Header undef

Body => ARRAY-of-LINES

The value of this option should be a reference to an array which contains
the lines for the body of the message. Each line should be terminated with
"\n" (LF). If Body is given then "Mail::Internet" will not attempt to
read the body from "ARG" (even if it is specified).

Header => Mail::Header

The value of this option should be a Mail::Header object. If given then
"Mail::Internet" will not attempt to read a mail header from "ARG", if
it was specified.

$obj->read(FILEHANDLE)

Read a message from the FILEHANDLE into an already existing message
object. Better use new() with the FILEHANDLE as first argument.

Accessors

$obj->body([BODY])

Returns the body of the message. This is a reference to an array.
Each entry in the array represents a single line in the message.

If BODY is given, it can be a reference to an array or an array, then
the body will be replaced. If a reference is passed, it is used directly
and not copied, so any subsequent changes to the array will change the
contents of the body.

$obj->head()

Returns the "Mail::Header" object which holds the headers for the current
message

Processing the message as a whole

$obj->as_mbox_string([ALREADY_ESCAPED])

Returns the message as a string in mbox format. "ALREADY_ESCAPED", if
given and true, indicates that escape_from() has already been called on
this object.

$obj->as_string()

Returns the message as a single string.

$obj->print([FILEHANDLE])

Print the header, body or whole message to file descriptor FILEHANDLE.
$fd should be a reference to a GLOB. If FILEHANDLE is not given the
output will be sent to STDOUT.

example:

$mail->print( \*STDOUT ); # Print message to STDOUT

$obj->print_body([FILEHANDLE])

Print only the body to the FILEHANDLE (default STDOUT).

$obj->print_header([FILEHANDLE])

Print only the header to the FILEHANDLE (default STDOUT).

Processing the header

Most of these methods are simply wrappers around methods provided
by Mail::Header.

$obj->add(PAIRS-of-FIELD)

The PAIRS are field-name and field-content. For each PAIR,
Mail::Header::add() is called. All fields are added after
existing fields. The last addition is returned.

$obj->combine(TAG, [WITH])

See Mail::Header::combine().

$obj->delete(TAG, [TAGs])

Delete all fields with the name TAG. Mail::Header::delete() is doing the
work.

$obj->fold([LENGTH])

See Mail::Header::fold().

$obj->fold_length([TAG], [LENGTH])

See Mail::Header::fold_length().

$obj->get(TAG, [TAGs])

In LIST context, all fields with the name TAG are returned. In SCALAR
context, only the first field which matches the earliest TAG is returned.
Mail::Header::get() is called to collect the data.

$obj->header([ARRAY-of-LINES])

See Mail::Header::header().

$obj->replace(PAIRS-of-FIELD)

The PAIRS are field-name and field-content. For each PAIR,
Mail::Header::replace() is called with INDEX 0. If a FIELD is already
in the header, it will be removed first. Do not specified the same
field-name twice.

Processing the body

$obj->remove_sig([NLINES])

Attempts to remove a users signature from the body of a message. It does this
by looking for a line equal to '-- ' within the last "NLINES" of the
message. If found then that line and all lines after it will be removed. If
"NLINES" is not given a default value of 10 will be used. This would be of
most use in auto-reply scripts.

Removes all leading and trailing lines from the body that only contain
white spaces.

High-level functionality

$obj->escape_from()

It can cause problems with some applications if a message contains a line
starting with `From ', in particular when attempting to split a folder.
This method inserts a leading "`"'> on any line that matches the regular
expression "/^"*From/>

$obj->nntppost([OPTIONS])

Post an article via NNTP. Requires Net::NNTP to be installed.

-Option--Default
Debug <false>
Host <required>
Port 119

Debug => BOOLEAN

Debug value to pass to Net::NNTP, see Net::NNTP

Host => HOSTNAME|Net::NNTP object

Name of NNTP server to connect to, or a Net::NNTP object to use.

Port => INTEGER

Port number to connect to on remote host

$obj->reply(OPTIONS)

Create a new object with header initialised for a reply to the current
object. And the body will be a copy of the current message indented.

The ".mailhdr" file in your home directory (if exists) will be read
first, to provide defaults.

-Option --Default
Exclude []
Indent '>'
Keep []
ReplyAll false

Exclude => ARRAY-of-FIELDS

Remove the listed FIELDS from the produced message.

Indent => STRING

Use as indentation string. The string may contain "%%" to get a single "%",
%f to get the first from name, %F is the first character of %f,
%l is the last name, %L its first character, %n the whole from
string, and %I the first character of each of the names in the from string.

Keep => ARRAY-of-FIELDS

Copy the listed FIELDS from the original message.

ReplyAll => BOOLEAN

Automatically include all To and Cc addresses of the original mail,
excluding those mentioned in the Bcc list.

$obj->send([TYPE, [ARGS...]])

Send a Mail::Internet message using Mail::Mailer. TYPE and ARGS are
passed on to Mail::Mailer::new().

$obj->smtpsend([OPTIONS])

Send a Mail::Internet message using direct SMTP. to the given
ADDRESSES, each can be either a string or a reference to a list of email
addresses. If none of "To", <Cc> or "Bcc" are given then the addresses
are extracted from the message being sent.

The return value will be a list of email addresses that the message was sent
to. If the message was not sent the list will be empty.